NEWARK, N.J. — There is always more excitement inside the building than out when it comes to the NHL Draft, and that’s especially true this year since it’s being held in this city.

Much of the excitement Saturday night, however, was coming from across the river in Midtown Manhattan, where many NHL execs were gathered to discuss player movement in one way or another.

Reportedly, that included the Flyers. Despite plans to stay home until Sunday, general manager Paul Holmgren, chief exec Peter Luukko and company were said to be heading to New York to join the bidding for Vincent Lecavalier, the longtime Tampa Bay Lightning star center that is now a pending unrestricted free agent via a compliance buyout. The Flyers would be one of several teams or more who would possibly offer up bidding packages to Lecavalier’s representatives.

Meanwhile, the Flyers have reportedly floated Braydon Coburn’s name as potential trade bait as they continue to work on freeing up salary cap space for a free agency season that Holmgren says will be wide open.

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“I think there’s going to be lots of funny stuff happening in the next 10 days or 9 days, leading up to July 5,” he said Wednesday. “It’s a very competitive league and we’re all trying to do what the Blackhawks just did.”

That would be win a Stanley Cup, not buy one.

Meanwhile, a kid named Seth Jones will have that same Cup dream dancing in his eyes at Prudential Center Sunday for a draft that won’t start until 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Happy Hour in Newark.

According to Joe Sakic, now dressing himself up as the executive star in charge of the Colorado Avalanche, he’d be perfectly happy drafting Nathan MacKinnon, projected as a dominant center who indeed dominated the Quebec junior ranks playoffs this spring. The only caveat to that is that there are still a lot of people who think Sakic is blowing smoke when it comes to MacKinnon, and that Sakic’s little buddy Jones will be Colorado’s selection.

Why?

Because Seth Jones is the 18-year-old son of former NBA player Ronald “Popeye” Jones, who while a member of the Denver Nuggets made a contact with Sakic. So eventually did his three sons, Justin, Seth and Caleb make a real contact with the game of hockey after sitting rinkside to watch Sakic, new Avalanche coach Patrick Roy and the rest of the Avs win the Cup in 2001.

“That was kind of the moment I can remember I wanted to be a hockey player, and eventually raise the Cup one day,” Seth Jones said at a prospects luncheon Friday afternoon in nearby Weehawken.

So now shouldn’t it be expected that Sakic make Jones’ dreams come true ... especially when Jones happens to be the top-rated player in the draft according to many a hockey draft geek?

“No, not at all,” Jones said. “No. 1 is special, but at the same time, there are a lot of great players who haven’t been No. 1 and they went on to have great careers.”

Jones has drawn comparisons to premier physical defenders with an offensive touch ... a guy like Chris Pronger, for example.

“It’s pretty cool to be put in that category,” Jones said. “I’m at a loss for words for anybody to say that.”

If Jones, who cut his teeth playing for two years in the U.S. National Team Developmental Program, isn’t taken by the Avalanche, then the draft will turn instantly intriguing for the Flyers.

For as vacant as their organization is when it comes to defensive prospects, they’d love to get Jones or another defender much like him, Darnell Nurse. It’s just that selecting at No. 11, it would be awfully difficult to move up far enough to get those guys.

“He’s a big guy, obviously,” Holmgren said of the 6-foot-4, 205-pound Jones. “He has a lot of range in his game. He’s a great skater. He’s good with the puck. I wouldn’t call him physically dominating in terms of hitting, but he dominates with his stick and his hockey sense.”

Jones might have 10 or 15 pounds on him, but Nurse is every bit 6-4, too, and is working to add bulk to a presence which already can intimidate.

“As a player I’d like to fashion my game after Shea Weber,” Nurse said. “He has a lot of impact, not only in the defensive zone but in the offensive zone, and he just keeps it simple.”

This is not a Draft Day that would seem to go off as simple as it should. Those so-called “amnesty buyouts” and changing budgets are conspiring to produce a lot of trade talk, and positioning for the start of the free agency period July 5. The Flyers, having already dispatched Danny Briere and Ilya Bryzgalov and their combined annual cap hits of nearly $12.2 million via compliance buyouts, could fall into that. With the amnesty buyouts, coupled with the 4-year, $21 million contract Holmgren made official with defensive free agent Mark Streit this weekend, the Flyers were $4.2 million below the anticipated $64.3 million cap.

Perhaps they’re trying to clear Coburn’s $4.5 million lot in order to try to free up enough space to bid for Lecavalier or make some other grand move. And maybe not.

If they don’t make a trading move that influences their current selection spot, they could be looking at a nice consolation draft prize on defense. Perhaps Ryan Pulock and his 100 mph shot, or ready-now physical defender Rasmus Ristolainen or even hulking Russian defender Nikita Zadorov.

“I think that you have to have an open mind,” Holmgren said. “Eleven is a good spot. I think we’re going to get a good player, but if we can move up the food chain and get what we agree is a better prospect, you’ve got to look at it if it makes sense.”